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colinneagle (2544914) writes "Yesterday, we saw the release of GNOME 3.8, which comes with its impressive "Classic Mode" feature. Classic Mode, in a nutshell, brings back a significant portion of the GNOME 2 user interface. The one that so many people (still) love and cling to. The one that Ubuntu utilized as its default user experience – before switching over to the in-house developed Unity Desktop. In fact, GNOME 2 remains so beloved by so many that some have gone to the (fairly desperate seeming, in my opinion) measure of forking GNOME 3 with the intention of modifying it to provide a more "GNOME 2" style experience for their users. This includes the Linux Mint team with their Cinnamon environment.

These forks of GNOME 3 have confused me right from the start. You see...GNOME 3 is designed to be highly customizable. Building a GNOME 2-styled user experience (the top and bottom panels, the Application menu, etc.) on top of GNOME 3, utilizing extensions, has been done since almost the very moment that GNOME 3 first launched back in early 2011.

The talented developers that forked GNOME 3, for this purpose, (such as the Cinnamon crew) have just wasted a significant portion of their time. That time could have been spent working with the GNOME team to add new functionality and improvements. And that loss of time and progress is a major bummer."Link to Original Source